Indonesia and Malaysia have said they will delay trade talks with the EU while they seek fairer treatment for small palm oil producers hit by the bloc’s “punitive” new rules to prevent deforestation.
Dato’ Sri Haji Fadillah bin Haji Yusof, deputy prime minister of Malaysia, told the Financial Times during a visit to Brussels on Wednesday that the EU’s recently adopted law banning the import of products that come from land cleared of forests, was “punitive and unfair treatment towards us and to smallholders in particular”.
His counterpart H.E. Airlangga Hartarto, the Indonesian minister for economic affairs, said that the policy favoured “large corporations or multinationals” that could afford the level of bureaucracy that the regulation will demand.